


Geborgenheit

by star_child



Series: The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows [7]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Fights, M/M, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 02:42:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11476926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/star_child/pseuds/star_child
Summary: (geh-BORE-gan-hite)nouna feeling of safety, protection, and concealment, most often felt in connection with one or more other persons or a special place





	Geborgenheit

_ Worthless. _

His legs move automatically, slowly propelling him forward.

_ Stupid. _

Hands shaking, gripping his elbows, shoulders hiked to his ears.

_ Ugly. _

Rain pounds off his body and the pavement around him.

_ Whore. _

“Makki?”

_ Nuisance. _

“What are you doing here? Do you know what time it is?”

Hanamaki slowly raises his head, blinks uncomprehendingly at Matsukawa, standing rumpled and bleary eyed in his doorway. He didn’t even realize where he was going.

“Hiro?” Matsukawa asks, concern beginning to overtake the annoyance coloring his tone. “Are you okay?”

He blinks once, twice, slowly. Opens his mouth. “Can I… come in?”

Matsukawa quickly steps aside, mumbling, “Of course, of course, you’re soaked, get in here.”

Hanamaki shuffles inside, stopping inside the doorway and standing there as if he suddenly feels lost in his own best friend’s home. Matsukawa quickly shuts the door behind him.

“What’s the matter with you, huh?” he asks, voice low. “Take your shoes off, come here.”

Obediently, Hanamaki toes his shoes off, still shivering like a leaf in the wind. The house is dark, lit only by the kitchen light above the stove and the streetlamps shining in through the windows. He can't stop  _ shaking  _ but when Matsukawa beckons him down the hall he follows like a soaking wet, lost puppy.

He hardly registers anything after that, receives sensations but doesn't interpret them. His wet shirts gets peeled off, leaving his skin cold and damp. A towel, new by the feel of it, is wrapped around his shoulders, rubbed up and down his torso. Matsukawa’s slow voice rings in his ears, but the words don't piece together.

The warm mug in his hands brings him back. He’s sitting on Matsukawa’s couch, now in a hoodie and his still damp jeans. Now that he’s trying, he can still feel the lingering sensation of the sweatshirt where it brushed over his arms and chest as he put it on. Touching the mug to his lips, he sighs as the sugar bursts through his mouth.

“Tell me what happened,” Matsukawa says, low voice cutting through the fog still clouding his mind.

Hanamaki takes a deep breath.

* * *

Upon entering their last year of university, Hanamaki meets a girl.

He’s known girls before, of course, but this one is different. She’s short and curvy, with chunks of her hair dyed blue and green. Her name is Atakashi Kou, and they’re in the same year, though she’s a few months younger and studying art instead of his environmental science.

She’s bold and loud and always covered in paint, she laughs hard at everything and tells her friends every day that she loves them. Hanamaki loves her.

It’s not long before they start dating. She helps him re dye his hair, he helps her in all her classes that aren’t art. Attempts to study are usually discarded after about fifteen minutes, ending with hair gripped between fingers and hands under shirts.

Hanamaki normally wouldn’t consider himself a very physical guy, especially given the libido of most college kids, but Kou is always so eager that he can’t help himself. She tastes like sugar and knows how to move her hips in a such a way that leaves him powerless, gripping the sheets and gasping for breath.

His time with his friends decreases. He doesn't hang out with them in favor of tasting those sugar lips, of squeezing the flesh of her hips and coming undone in the hands of this snarky, wonderful girl. She never disappoints.

After a while, her once sweet teasing takes on a nastier edge.

“Did I say you could touch me?” she snaps as they walk through the mall, batting away the hand Hanamaki tried to rest around her shoulders. He blinks in surprise, pulling his arm away quickly. He does this all the time and she’s never had a problem with it, so why…?

She winks at him a moment later, a smile taking over her displeased face. “Just teasing babe, jeez,” she giggles. She skips ahead of him then for a moment before allowing him to catch up, and he doesn't try to replace his arm.

* * *

“Hold on,” he pants, sitting up for a second, “Fuck.” He tears his shirt off, tossing it somewhere to the side of his bed. Kou lies below him, also trying to catch her breath, a dark hickey blooming on her neck. As Makki dives back into her neck, she speaks.

“Hey.”

He stops short, lifting his head to look at her.

“You sure you wanna do it while your roommate's home?” she asks, and Makki is about to think,  _ Oh, that's thoughtful,  _ when she continues. “You moan like a whore, he's definitely gonna hear us.”

“Oh,” Makki says, wrinkling his nose. “Well, that was a rude way to put it.”

She shrugs, unbothered. “Just tellin’ you what I know, babe. Tryna’ look out for you, y’know?”

“Could be a little  _ nicer _ about it, shit,” Makki mumbles, looking away. He doesn't moan like a whore… That's ridiculous. “Ridiculous,” he says out loud. “Fine then, if you're so worried –”

“ _ I'm  _ not worried.”

“– We don't have to do it.”

She peers up at him, obviously displeased. “Whatever,” she finally huffs, sitting up and yanking her shirt back into place. “I got homework to do anyway.” She takes another few minutes to fix her clothes and her hair in Makki’s small mirror, scoff at the mark on her neck before she's gone.

* * *

To: mattsun  
4:36 pm  
_ i don't moan like a whore do i _

From: mattsun  
4:45 pm  
_ how tf would i kno that dude _

From: mattsun  
4:45 pm  
_ mayb ask oikawa hmm? _

From: mattsun  
4:45 pm  
_ im sure hed remember _

From: mattsun  
4:46 pm  
_ ;) _

To: mattsun  
4:47 pm  
_ yeah that really didnt help thanks _

From: mattsun  
4:49 pm  
_ i havent talked 2 u in like 3 days n this is the 1st thing i get? _

To: mattsun  
4:50 pm  
_ whatever dude ttyl _

From: mattsun  
4:50 pm  
…

* * *

“What's been up with you lately?” Mattsun asks, tossing a piece of popcorn in the air.

Makki reaches out and swats it aside before his friend can catch it in his mouth. “What are you talkin’ about?” he asks, suppressing a laugh as Mattsun frowns after his lost snack. “Nothin’s up. Let's do something fun.”

Mattsun shrugs. “Like what?”

“I don't know. Something fun.”

“Yes, you've mentioned fun.”

Makki stands from the couch, full of restless energy. “Let's go swimming. Or to the arcade. We should get tattoos.”

Impossible to startle, Mattsun simply raises an eyebrow. “Tattoos?” he echoes.

“Yeah!” Makki warms to the idea, bouncing around the living room. Mattsun throws another piece of popcorn in the air as he watches, catching it easily. “Like, y’know, best friend tattoos or whatever. Something that represents  _ us.” _

“Mhm. And what would that be?”

Makki stops moving, dropping where he is to sit on the floor. He considers this, chin propped on the tips of his fingers. Then he snaps. “A shitty meme.”

“As ironic and horrible as every cell in my body is,” Mattsun starts, “tats are permanent, and I  _ really _ don't want to be that jackass in a year with an old meme tattooed on them.”

Makki nods, a little more forceful than necessary. “You're right, you're right. Something else. What are  _ we, _ Mattsun? Deep at our centers, what are we?”

“Annoying.”

“No.”

“A spinal cord.”

“That's more to the back.”

“A stomach, then.”

Makki laughs, loud and snorting and unbidden. “You're the best, bro,” he snickers when he's calmed down.

“Damn right,” Mattsun mumbles around a mouthful of popcorn. “It's just good to see you laugh again.”

“What do you mean? I laugh all the time, dude.”

Shrugging, Mattsun eats another few pieces of popcorn, tossing one to Makki on the floor. He opens his mouth, catches it. “I just mean…” Mattsun starts slowly, “Lately, when you spend too much time with that girl, you get… weird.”

Makki looks confused. “Weird?”

“Yeah, I don't know, like all distant and reserved. Careful, I guess. It's weird.”

“I don't do that,” Makki protests, straightening his back.

“You do though. You get all shy and like self deprecating. Scared me a couple weeks ago, dude.”

Makki turns less defensive, more curious. “What do you mean?”

Mattsun shrugs, uncomfortable with the sudden heavy topic. “Kept sendin’ me all these weird texts, you were always freaked out by one thing or another.”

They sit in silence for an uncomfortably long time, before Makki suddenly jumps to his feet. “That sounds fake,” he says breezily, and he sounds like Oikawa. “Let's go get ice cream.”

Mattsun takes a deep breath before he follows.

* * *

Kou leans over his shoulder, peering at his grades on the screen. She lost her glasses a few hours ago and has been walking around squinting, since she's not going to put on contacts just to sit around. “What’d you get on that test you took the other day? The dirt one, or whatever.”

Makki switches tabs, brings up his school email instead. “Oh, I dunno, it's not in yet,” he lies impulsively. It went in this morning, he got an eighty-seven. Not bad, but he feels like she’ll have something scathing to say about not letting his grades slip.

She hums. “Let me know, you were studying your ass off for it.”

He nods to cover up how he flinches. If she remembers how hard he was studying, she’ll  _ definitely  _ be unimpressed by something that’s not even an A. He can probably just lie his way out of it.

* * *

(“What was that test you were stressed about last week?” Mattsun asks from the floor.

Makki grunts. “Dirt.”

“How’d you do?”

He hesitates for only a second. “Eighty-seven.”

Mattsun lifts his head to turn his lazy gaze on his best friend. “Not bad, my dude. Good job.”

Makki smiles to himself.)

* * *

Makki likes to sit and listen to the rain, most of the time. It’s soothing, refreshing, clean. Rain allows you to be unproductive without feeling lazy, like the mood is excused thanks to the weather. It leaves him feeling calm and new.

Which is why he’s annoyed that he’s now screaming over it, stomping back and forth around his dorm room as Kou shouts back at him.

He's not usually that sensitive. Whatever people have to say generally isn't negative, and if it is, it's coming from someone he barely knows. He can brush it off and probably never have to see that person again.

But this is  _ Kou. _ She's spent the last couple months worming her way into his life, under his skin, and now what she says  _ matters. _

“You just make everything such a  _ chore, _ Makki!” she shouts, hands on her hips and looking taller than she is. “You’re such a nuisance!”

“I do not! Everything I do is perfectly fine,  _ you’re  _ the one who treats me like an uncooperative child!”

Kou narrows her eyes. “That’s fucking harsh. You  _ act _ like an uncooperative child, I can’t get you to tell me anything anymore.”

“Like what,” Makki demands, “What haven’t I told you.”

“It’s all small things! That fucking dirt test, you won’t even tell me what –”

“I’m not obligated to tell you anything!” Makki hisses, pointing at her.

“Um, no,” she agrees, “but you’re not supposed to deliberately keep things from me when I ask you about them!”

“Oh, like you don’t –”

“It’s called  _ trust, _ Hiro, look it up!”

Makki balls his hands into fists. “I got a fucking eighty-seven!” he shouts. “Jesus christ, is that all you wanted to fucking know?”

Silence falls.

“An eighty-seven…” Kou repeats slowly, face pulling into something disgusted and minorly unimpressed.

“You see!” Makki yells, “That right there! This is why I don’t tell you anything! You fucking pull that shitty face, and you look at me like… Like  _ I’m  _ dirt!”

She leans back, adopting a tone of one lecturing a child. “Well when you study for a test for like three fucking weeks nonstop, most people tend to get better than a damn B plus! Christ, are you stupid?”

“You know, maybe I’d have gotten a little more studying in if you weren’t like ‘let’s fuck!’ every twenty minutes.”

“Oh, you’re calling  _ me _ a slut now?” Kou demands.

“That is not at all what I –”

“At least I’m not known around campus for having banged my best friend.”

Makki starts. “Oikawa? What, that was  _ years  _ ago, how did you –”

“Oh?” Kou pretends to inspect her nails. “You’ve fucked Oikawa too? I was talking about Matsukawa.”

“I have  _ not  _ fucked Mattsun!”

“Really? Because according to YikYak, I’m an idiot for dating the school’s biggest whore for so long…”

Makki shakes his head. “You’re so full of shit. You’re full of  _ shit. _ No one even uses YikYak anymore.”

“Oh honey, get it through your ugly little head…” she coos, “You’re fucking worthless, and that’s that.”

He’s suffocating. She’s grinning at him like she knows she’s won, and he can’t  _ take it. _ Still shaking his head, and turns and runs out into the rain.


End file.
